The Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), Germany’s regulator of network utilities including telecom, is to pursue further its analysis of the country’s wholesale leased-line market. The gesture – and it may be no more than that – touches on the deeper issue of incumbent Deutsche Telekom’s VDSL network. The ring-fencing of the latter from regulation (and from competing carriers) has caused an immense spat between the Germans and EC authorities in Brussels.

At the end of September, Brussels opened a so-called ‘Phase II’ investigation into German wholesale regulation that would ultimately lead to the possibility of it applying a veto to German policy in this area. This move basically called the integrity and neutrality of the BNetzA into question.

The shift in stance by the BNetzA was welcomed today by Viviane Reding, the EU’s redoubtable and rotweiler-ish Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "It is crucial for the Commission that national regulators review their relevant markets based on a thorough competition analysis that is technologically neutral, forward looking and that uses sufficiently detailed data. I therefore welcome that this issue will now be further assessed by the German regulator in order to arrive at a market analysis based on clear economic facts. The consensual way by which this issue could be settled is proof of the functioning cooperation between the European Commission and national regulators under the EU telecom rules.”

The extent to which the BnetzA will act upon these latest intentions - or be allowed to by the German government – is still unclear. But Brussels and Viv The Impaler are watching now, more closely than ever.
Jim Chalmers